A Free Resource to Negative Nirvana

Most times it’s easier to figure out what you want instead of what you don’t want. For instance, let’s say you go into Starbucks, ready to try a Blueberries & Crème Frappuccino.

Now when you order, you don’t say, “Well, I want one of your fine beverages, but I don’t want an Espresso, Vanilla Latte, White Iced Tea” and so on. You simply order what it is you want. There’s no need to consider all the things you don’t want.

Well, if only PPC were that easy. In the PPC world there can be an almost endless variety of ways your potential customers can describe your products in a search phrase. Fortunately, you can simplify that task by choosing to bid some of your terms using “broad match” which will display your ad for all search phrases that include your keyword.
However, using broad match might also result in your ad showing for phrases that have nothing to do with your products or services. For example, if you sell imported coffees and you bid broad match on the phrase “imported coffee”, your ad will show when someone searches on “imported coffee tables”.
The solution is to use negative keywords that will prevent your ad from showing. In this case, since you don’t sell coffee tables, coffee machines, or give away free coffee, you’d want to use the following negative keywords – “tables”, “machines”, “free” … plus many others.

The Largest Free Collection of Negativity

How do you go about finding all the negative keywords that apply to your products or services? The Engine Ready team has put together a valuable resource to help you quickly build your negative keyword list, by compiling a list of common terms, which in most cases can and should be used as negative keywords for most companies. We’ve provided the list in a .txt format, so you can easily copy and paste the listings into your Google, YSM and MSN accounts. You can download this free list at http://www.engineready.com/company/negativekeywords.txt.

You’ll want to review the list carefully before applying them to your campaigns. There may be some words on our list that are actually desirable for your business or may even describe your products or services.

We’ve broken out our list of 420 negative keywords by major vertical, along with a list of general negative keywords that should work well for any industry.
Along with our free negative keyword list, your web analytics are a prime source of negative keyword information. Here you can find the actual query phrases your visitors searched on that led to a visit to your site. You can then determine which of these phrases are not related to your products and add them to your campaigns as negative keywords.

More Paths to Negative Nirvana

Here are 3 more useful resources for building out your negative keyword list:
1. Organic Listings – Type in your keyword phrase into Google and review the organic listings for words that don’t describe your products or services. For example, if you sold barbeques, search on the word “barbeque” and you’d see dozens of negative keywords in the first 10 listings including recipes, steaks and sauce.
2. Competition – Visit your competitor’s sites and note any products or services that you don’t offer. If for instance you only sell natural colored cowbells, you might find that your competitor offers them in blue, green and red. From that information, you can add those color words as negative keywords.
3. Use the Google Keyword Tool with “Use Synonyms” box checked. If you sell every type, brand, size and color of luggage and luggage accessories available, you might think you don’t need negative keywords. However, this tool would have shown you that someone searching on “luggage car racks” would have prompted your ad to appear.

And, if your ad was not specific enough, like the one below, you might end up paying for that traffic.

Luggage – Up to 80% Off
Everything luggage. Shop the finest luggage
and accessories, quick shipping.

The Engine’s Rules on Negative Keywords

Here’s a table that shows you how the major PPC search engines allow you to setup your negative keywords. Note that MSN does not put a limit on the number of keywords. Instead the number of characters of all your negative keywords cannot exceed 1,022 characters.

Remember that using broad match without adding the right negative keywords is like drinking a lot of Blueberries & Crème Frappuccino’s without getting any exercise. They both have very undesirable consequences.

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Brian Lewis is VP of Marketing at Engine Ready, Inc. (www.engineready.com) A noted author and speaker at many industry conferences, Mr. Lewis earned his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego and his M.B.A. in Finance from the Graduate School of Management, Arizona State University, graduating both schools with honors

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